"... And a Heaven in a Wild Flower..."

[Swgrclan 2682]

Date unknown.

 

He felt a presence looming over him for the past twenty years. Encroaching, ever so slightly, with every day passed, he knew what he felt would soon be upon him; and so he ran. Abdiel Ipos, the Ashkeeper, the “Lord-Commander” and Hand of War as King Malineer Dralguna of Devirad had proclaimed him, left all behind with the very keen, nearly maddening awareness that his demise would soon come and snuff the precious flame he clung to life away. The ancient Dark Elf had his fair share of running in life - once, he served the God of Ruin, and when his plots came to a most bitterly ironic degradation, he ran. Once, he stood among the first of the Gravelords as a terrible and wretchedly powerful Wraith, and when he could not bear to suffer its vice anylonger, he ran from it. When he recorded the scriptures of Xion from a flame that could speak like a man, and then spread it across the mortal world, he ran again, knowing others would seek him out in an effort to destroy the truths he had forged upon old paper with ink.

 

But he couldn’t run from this. It was a chase that reflected a deep and long-time kinship- a children’s game of ‘tag’, soiled by the righteous demand for brotherly bloodshed. It anchored his soul in vicious determination, driving him to leave everything at the one hope he would survive, but his years of deceit and wretchedness caught up with him in the form of a man. A relative. A cousin. A brother, bearing Dragonsblood.

 

They stood over the precipice of the Abyss that churned endlessly below in its perpetual suffering. His hunter, by the name of Adeodatus Ipos, once Akal, stood some distance afar clad in armor that denoted some ancient Oren knight’s adornments; and within his hands were held a shield and a blade, blessed by the God of Sunlight above, Xan. Adeodatus was prepared- for from his father he inherited the same boundless intellect and sharp wit as the dear cousin he had been searching for for the past half-century. But so was Abdiel, as he always was, even when standing upon the edge of the great and terrible maw that he made an oath to preach of until his dying days.

 

 

Clasping a light, steel sabre in the false metal left hand of his, Abdiel kept his stance idle as he faced his cousin. “Finally here,” He breathed out, his face without the helmet that matched his accursed Ashkeeper’s armor. “It took you… too long, but you came. I’ve been waiting, Akal. Waiting for this day ever since I saw it in the stars, and now I finally know they did not lie to me.” Adeodatus, too, lacked a helmet; and whereas his long hair was tied back neatly to reveal his scarred, but undirtied face, his kin afar was unkept and grime-laden; his tresses a mess, marked with gray that streaked through the black as though he suffered the curse of Humans, his face bearing the ratty, developing beard of a foul transient. Abdiel’s one eye was pinned unblinkingly upon his bloodsharer, yet alike Adeodatus, his countenance was calm and stoic in the face of certain doom. He was ready for the end, it seemed.

 

“It doesn’t matter how long I took to find you, Abdiel. I knew from the day you crawled to my homestead like a jabbering dog, entrenched in the practicees of a Fel God, that I would have to find you again…

 

I shouldn’t have let you leave me that day. I let you… sprout to tumor on this world, Abdiel. I shouldn’t have let you leave.. I shouldn’t have…”

 

“But you did. That’s my mark upon you, cousin,” The scarred Dark Elf droned fiercely in response, breaking the image of calm he kept up all this time. “Or should I say… brother?”

 

Adeodatus’ face contorted into an expression of hot, smoldering rage as though the statement of kinship taunted at something deep within him. Suddenly, he rushed forward, longsword raised high in the air with kiteshield held over his face before he swung the blade down with unrelenting might and speed. Yet-- despite the erosion on his body, the betrayal of the flesh brought upon by all manner of arcane, Abdiel raised the leftward, false arm attached to him, and parried the assault with ease; quickly stepping to the side. Words had ceased as they phased into their rite of bloodshed; both moving with swift skill, with sharp duress, with parallel ferocity. The clash of blades resounded through the empty valley, where no one could take witness or adhere to them, for no one was left to help either side. Neither of them needed help, nor did they deserve it. And no one deserved to interrupt.

 

But Abdiel was not as capable of his dear cousin. Often did his stance slip, his strikes miss; and though that bastardized, phantom-pain addled arm of his bore no sense of exhaustion or wear, the rest of his body did. That black art, that Necromancy he had clung to for ages finally betrayed him, stabbing him in the back with frail bones, softened flesh and failing muscle. He was nothing, here, and their battle only delayed the inevitable. But one strike proved Abdiel bore some luck; a swift cut to Adeodatus’ sword-arm, and the longsword was dropped upon the dead, bewitched earth. Growling in frustration, the Iposian knight threw his shield to the side and suddenly converged upon Abdiel with something he could not match- strength.

 

The sabre was deftly smacked from his false hand before another gauntlet rushed forward to bash him in the face, sending him reeling backward. He stared Adeodatus in the face with brief shock- as though he stared into a distorted mirror. His cousin’s one eye, other having been taken from him with the empty socket covered with an eyepatch, was filled with tremendous rage; and his own one eye, with the other having been taken by a treacherous bloodmage and left covered only by the eyelid, was flush with growing mania and deranged acceptance. Having lost his composure and focus in this brief moment of maddening awareness, Abdiel let Adeodatus take hold of him by the shoulder plates, gripping them with an unmatched and unbridled hold. He seethed his breaths through bared teeth that only parted to utter words laced with a fury only the most scorned of men could utter:
 

 

“No more!”

 

He released Abdiel, and then struck him in the face again, sending him stumbling backwards and ever-closer to the cliff’s edge that dipped down into the deep Abyss. In a fumbling rush, the ancient Necromancer withdrew his own curved dagger, determined to leave a mark before his certain departure. His cousin’s words forced a twisted smile onto his lips as Adeodatus continued to speak, having rushed close enough to send another unavoidable strike to his barely protected sternum.

 

“All the people I murdered… by letting you live.”

 

Reduced to a stumbling mess, all Abdiel could do is laugh; doing so in such volume, with such hysterica, that he could not even breathe- but even still, with his face painted by his own blood that hided the bruises, he could still keep focus on the charging Adeodatus. That was his own bane-- he became too rash, and thus his maddened cousin caught him in a snare. Striking at the Paladin’s face with his false hand, the dagger he had just drawn was uselessly dropped to the ground as Adeodatus stumbled behind him before being gripped by his hair and then pulled downward with enough, surprising strength to force him onto his back. Abdiel clambered down upon him, pressing his living right hand upon the warrior’s shoulder as though he thought he had the strength to keep him down whereas Adeodatus was only truly upon the ground because of his daze. And then the cold, metal fingertips wrapped around the Paladin’s throat, and began to choke him; stealing away his air, before shortly after, he began to sap the very life from Adeodatus’ body. The Ipos choked and struggled beneath Abdiel as his cousin ripped from him the very essence that bid all things life, if only to give him the last bit of energy the Necromancer needed to survive.

 

“It’s finally here, isn't it?!” Abdiel bellowed as he stared down at Adeodatus with a gaze gripped with utter insanity, his entire facade of morality that his mission under Xionism finally free. “The moment we’ve been waiting for!” His cousin could not respond, he could not breathe, he could not move; his one eye closing tightly as he suffered, with fleeting thoughts darting through his head like arrows cutting through the air; flecks of the wretched belief that he was about to die.

 

But he would not. The stars did not say so.

 

Shakily raising his left gauntlet, he struck Abdiel across the face and broke his focus into a million pieces as the Necromancer toppled to the side with a broken nose that began to gush blood from the impact. They were both bloodied, worn, their bodies suffering-- and so the clash seemed to fade in its ferocity as all they could do is force themselves to stand.

 

 

But they kept fighting. One strike after another, as though they took turns; fists striking against faces, blood spilt by brethren, while the day churned on into dusk. The moon peeked over the horizon as they continued to strike each other down, while they both refused to take the knee of defeat.

 

It is said that the Iposians bear the blood of Dragons, passed down from their ancestor the First Lord Thrasamund. But it was also said, in his days, that Thrasamund struck a Drake down with his very hands-- and thus history repeated itself here. Like his progenitor before him, Adeodatus did not falter before his enemy that was laden was the afflictions of the deepest, darkest corruption. As the moonlight began to replace the sunlight, Abdiel was forced onto his knees as he went still from the final blow. Defeat was certain from the beginning, and he knew it. The madness gave way to the weight of clarity, forcing him back into the reality of his fall.

 

Falling forward, he held himself up by his living arm as the false one, made alive by the work of arcane, suddenly went limp at his side.

 

“Fi̧r͡e wil͏l.̡.. sp̷r͝ea҉d ͝a͜crosş ͞t͢he ̀w͡or͞l̸d́,͜” Abdiel groaned out coarsely, his eye half-open as he stared at the ground as he breathed uneven breaths. “Th͝e͏ G̀o̷ds̀ ͞will̷.͡.. ço͢ntinue ͢to...̴ ̕us̢e҉ our͢ wo̵r̢l͜d ͡l͏ike ̴a... pl̸aygr̸o͠ưn͢d̡…” With a deep, agonized groan, he began to shakily stand, raising his gaze to finally settle upon his cousin. His brother. “Thei͡r sins ͞w̷ill ̡go ͟un̵not̷ice͡d̵ ̡b̵y t҉hę ͟peo͘ple͘.͠.̛.͢ ̸and ͘the͜ la͜nd̸s t̸h̷ey w̷i̷ll̸ ͞k͡e͟ep s͡ear͜ch͢i̶ng fór… wi̷ll sto̡p ̵a̵ppȩarin̵g̴ ov͘er͞ ţh̷e ̷hoŗizo̶n.”

 

Adeodatus could not gather the willpower to speak, but instead just stared at his closest of kin. He already knew his victory was achieved. Perhaps the last thing he could give to the one who shared his blood were these words, and what unsettling revelation they bore.

 

“I'̨v̸e ́d̷r̀awn a̵.͢... pa͞r̶a͟l͠lél, ́Ak͡a͟l̶. ͢We͟'re͢ ̶j҉ust͜ ͟pieces o͏n a g̶a͝me boa̛rd.͠..̕ re͠pe̢a͘ting̛ ţhe s҉ame ̢thing̀ ̢th͘a͞t ́ha͝ppened ͞aģes͏ b̛e͠f̢o̡r͘e. ̛I̛ have͘.̴.̧. ̷f̧ina͘l͡ly͠ ̶realiz̵e̵d th͏e vener̢a͡b͠l̵e Namele͢s̷s͟ ̡Lo̵r̛d'̡s faţe... ͟a͢ǹd n̸o͞w li̷ke͡ h̛e͜ h҉ad,̢ ̀I͟ wil̀l҉... d͏i̷sapp̛ear͘.̡”

 

A wry, heartfelt smile drew across his split lips. It was genuine- the first true smile that came to him in years. In decades. He had a moment of recollection - of his wife, of his son. Abdiel always told himself everything he did, every tragedy he caused, every living soul made dying by his hand, was for their survival; for their prosperity and growth. He kept the distant belief that it was all a ruse, a falsity, in the back of his mind the whole time. All he knew now was that he’s fought for years because he was born to, and like all other men entrenched in a life riddled with bloodshed, he was just an animal. His cousin was an animal. His father was an animal. The Old Lords were animals. Xionism was a book written by a beast.

 

The old Necromancer began to stumble back, ever so closely to the Abyss’ edge. His eye widening at this, Adeodatus stumbled forward in turn, as though compelled by some strange desire to keep his cousin away from his fate, even if it meant to turn his entire conquest into a contridiction. The Paladin’s hand raised toward Abdiel as his mouth opened to speak, yet could not produce words.

 

“I w҉o͟n't ̨be҉ ҉r̸em͜em͡bere͘d ́a̕s ͟w̢ha̡t I̶'͝v̨e͡ b̧een. ̷I̛ do̸n͏'̸t w͜anţ ̧to b̕e r͏em͞e͡m͠ber͡e̸d.̵” A disheveled series of soft chuckles departed from the old Dark Elf as he held his side, the pained noise soon breaking into a bout of harsh coughing. His soles tickled the edge of the cliff, and before he willingly let himself tip backward without an inkling of apprehension, he uttered one last thing.

 

“W͟e.̸..̀ ̧aŕę ̵bo̸r̕n, b̢y t͡he da͞r҉k͡.̕..͡

͠Ma͘d͝e.̛.. ͘m͘èn... ̴by̛ ͞t͏he ͏da̴r̀k͢.͡.҉.̶

 

͡Únd͏o͠n̡e b͟y ҉t́h̡e dar̕ḱ.”

 

Adeodatus watched his brotherly cousin descend into the Abyss below; down, down, down, until he could not be seen, until the impact could not be heard. And as he stood there in the moonlight, he wondered if it was even worth it in the first place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Upon the deepfloor lie he twitching- alive, yet not dead,

With darkness ‘pon his eye, bewitching, bringing waking dread,

And upon his knees did he rise, body broken, blood spilled,

Where Dragonsblood left him shattered, but not yet killed;

Relentless dark assailing him here, destined evermore,

For he fell close to the blackest, ill-ridden rotten core,

Where in the distance, his mind’s eye witnessed the deepest terror,

Brought about by Godly sin and great and boundless heavenly error,

Where it churned, asleep, in a night that knew no end,

Where dead men walked here, with no lasting mind to tend.

And as he stared with one, unblinking eye,

Where the earth bore the shadow of an everblack sky,

Dwelt this beast, a shadow of the greatest of sun’s light,

That if revealed, would make cosmic horrors take unceasing flight,

For no mistake made comes without distant or sudden cost,

In the Abyss, where both Men and Gods are led lost;

So he rose upon legs better left broken and battered,

Where his cloak, red like Redshroud’s, hangs soaked and tattered,

To behold this evil that hides aslumber, resting from a feast of life now gnawed,

Where the old, ancient Ashkeeper, came to witness the eternal Blind, Idiot God.